10h – the road is cut between Mandres and Luméville. Police has an authorization for taking people’s ID even in the cars, and they make drive back. To help protecting our fields, park in Luméville and walk.

10h15 – Cops have left the southern barricade, after removing the tires. It’s ok there.

The field near the “Gare de Luméville” is under a huge pressure. A machine is destroying the barricads and the trees we’ve planted in novembre. Our friends are in the field for protecting the cultures of wheat. We need people here!

10h30 – Police has left after removing the barricads. They don’t seem to like tires, at all…

No cops around anymore for now. Maybe they just wanted to put some pressure on us. Do they try to scare us at the very moment where they are losing their wood?

E.Hance, head of the ANDRA’s outside operations, pouring gasoline on militant protecting the access to the forest.

This morning, the ANDRA tried once again to get into the Lejuc forest to clean up what is left of the stone wall they built, a construction that was judged illegal on the 1st of August. We are declaring the legitimacy of our opposition to what is just a communication operation.

At 9.10 am this morning, a mechanical digger, two trucks with trailers, a bailiff, some watchmen and the communication service of the ANDRA came to “clean the forest”. Why didn’t they do it this summer, when the forest wasn’t occupied? The fact that they’re coming just a few days before the “rehabilitation’s” legal due date shows us that this is just a media circus to try and make up for their serious mistakes.

They came last Monday with trucks full of rubble, which means they’re not just trying to clean the forest, but to keep working on it for the CIGEO project. The cleaning is just a necessary step for them to be able to keep on destroying the forest.

They pretend doing everything in their power to keep these operations peaceful. We find it hard to believe after seeing E.Hance (head of public relations and executor of the ANDRA’s dirty work) driving his truck towards a militant last Monday or, this morning, pouring gasoline on a barricade that several people were defending with only their bodies. We will not give in to intimidation, nor threats.

We are fighting to preserve the forest, so that it can stay under ownership of Mandre-en-Barrois’s inhabitants. As the state prosecutor declared yesterday, the transfer to the ANDRA reeks of illegality. The audience tomorrow should confirm that the ANDRA has no place here.

We are fighting against the CIGEO project, in which the forest destruction is just a step.

We won’t let ourselves be atomized, and the Lejuc forest will stay to those that care about it!

9AM : One excavator, two tractors with trailers, and three cars went through the northern entrance of the forest.

9:30 Physical confrontation with the security at the north barricade, they try to force through and violently hit the present opponents. We called the Andra’s press service and warned them that their security guards are using violence again. (11H54 : precisions : the opponents have been harmed by those who tried to destroy the barricade, the guards did not directly hit this time. the excavator kept clearing at less than a meter from the people).

9:45 Oppponents are tied to the north barricade and resist to the machines. Emmanuel Hance, the usual dirty-work executor for the Andra, tries to move them by the force. Police on the roads, risks of checks !

10:00 Machines are still stopped. Emmanuel Hance put somme gasoil on the barricade where the opponents are tied. A bailiff is present : the Andra feeds its case file for the 8th february by creating conflict, and once more mafia-like means !

10:20 Security guards turn aroud in their trucks, film and wait for the police support. Opponents are tied to the excavator, on the barricade and are installed on a brand-new platform built at the north barricade.

10:40 The Andra’s “Communication service” is on the spot, with the bailiff and journalists. Just one day before the “forest rehab” deadline, this com operation is depressing. The press service is not answering…

10:45 Tension goes down, after a discussion the opponents free the machines and the barricades while the Andra announce a retirement.

10:55 The Andra and all its machines, guards, com service & co are leaving the Bois Lejuc

11:15 Numerous police checks at the roundabout, several police groups. Threats of immobilisation of vehicles.

11:25 People who came to support on the police check in Bure are controlled and filmed by the police.

11:50 end of the police checks, one vehicle “temporarily” immobilised.

For 6 months now, the Lejuc forest, in Bure, has been occupied by several dozens of people opposing the nuclear waste disposal project CIGEO.

The occupants have been summoned to court in Bar le Duc on January 25th when there might be an eviction ordered. But the private security gards and the police didn’t wait for the court trial to try and get back in the forest. The next few days will be crucial for the struggle against the CIGEO project.

Around 11am we heard machinery noises in the forest. On a path a few meters away from the communal hut, a construction truck – driven by no less than the infamous Emmanuel Hance, ANDRA’s director for public relations- was destroying barricades and broadening the existing road, escorted by two cars of EPR security guards.

France 3 channel journalists, who were here to interview people about the eviction trial on the 25th, witnessed the whole scene and couldn’t help but notice that Sir Hance wasn’t reluctant to push with a shovel some of the opponents who were trying to stop the machines, at the risk of injuring them. At the same time, a second truck, equally escorted, was noticed and pushed back on the main forest road just before it destroyed the last barricade protecting the collective kitchen.

In the end we managed to push ANDRA back to the center of the forest, at the level of a construction-to-be, put on the ground. In the back, three construction trucks belonging to the Chardot company, loaded with rubble, were waiting to build new roads in the forest. The claim was that their intention was to take away the wall that was destroyed in August. Even though three trials are still opposing us to ANDRA in the days and weeks to come, concerning the occupation of the forest, the deforestation et the illegal acquisition of the forest, ANDRA is once again forcing its way in. Under false pretenses of reconditioning the forest back to how it was, ANDRA is preparing a violent eviction of the forest in the days to come.

Two days before the trial against the forest occupants, the fast arrival of several police cars as well as a special intervention and surveillance brigade, under direct command of none other than brigade leader Bruno Dubois, in addition to a comrade being hit in the nose by a private security guard and ANDRA forcing it way back into the forest, all clearly show that ANDRA has once again decided to ignore the legal process and bring conflict onto the next level.

Today just like in August, we claim our determination to block constructions by ANDRA and to preserve the Lejuc forest at all cost from the destruction ANDRA wreaks upon it every single time!

We are not fooled: replanting a handful of shrubs after tearing down thousands of grown trees, or taking a way a few broken wall parts just a few days before the end of the legally imparted time to do so, is nothing but a smokescreen to better come back a month later to destroy the forest once again!

Meet us on February 18th for a great day of action and mobilisation: whether they try to evict us or not, we will be in the forest!

The Bois Lejuc occupants and opponents to the nuclear waste project CIGEO!

Map of the machines progress in the forest on the 23th January :

Black line with yellow dots : machines’s way into the forest on 23th January.

Orange stars : blockades of the machines by the opponents. (Northern one : face to face with the police / southern one : blockade of the machines)

Post navigation

30 janvier : advisement of a trial, court of Bar-le-Duc
4 february : works on the Solidarity Cabin in the Bois Lejuc
13 february : Trial of two people for the fall of the wall, 9AM, court of Bar-le-Duc
3 & 4 march : Meeting of all the support committees !
9, 10 & 11 march : week-end of discussions on Kurdistan and communalism
15 & 16 march : two days against all prisons !

Other :
February : Collective works in Dijon to build a cabin for the Bois Lejuc. Call for donations !
10 february : Celebration day on the zad of Notre-Dame-des-Landes !!